North Korea’s nuclear test sparks global outrage

World leaders have reacted with anger after North Korea carried out its fifth and reportedly biggest nuclear test.

The South accused the North’s leader Kim Jong-un of “maniacal recklessness”.

China “firmly opposed” the test, Japan “protested adamantly” and the US warned of “serious consequences” including “new sanctions”. The UN Security Council will meet later behind closed doors to discuss the issue.

Such nuclear tests are banned by the UN but this is Pyongyang’s second in 2016.

Kim Jong-un’s rhetoric has also become increasingly aggressive, analysts say.

The isolated communist nation has been hit by five sets of UN sanctions since its first test in 2006. Talks involving world and regional powers have failed to rein in the North’s nuclear programme.

In its statement announcing the underground test, North Korea expressed anger at the “racket of threat and sanctions… kicked up by the US-led hostile forces” to deny a “sovereign state’s exercise of the right to self-defence”.

The test came on the country’s National Day, which celebrates the founding of the current regime and which is often used as a show of military strength.

Technically, the North said the test was aimed at further developing the miniaturisation of nuclear warheads so they could be mounted on ballistic missiles.

In its statement the North said it could now produce “at will, and as many as it wants, a variety of smaller, lighter and diversified nuclear warheads of higher strike power”.

In recent months, the North has conducted a series of ballistic missile launches and has in the past often stated its aim of hitting US targets.

The North has previously made claims on “miniaturised” nuclear warheads but they have never been independently confirmed.